


something great (what we could have been)

by toes-ier (snowglobegays)



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Break Up, Crushes, Exes, Friendship, M/M, Moving On, Mutually Unrequited, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Old Friends, Platonic Relationships, Reminiscing, Stargazing, headassery, oh boy, this tagging is hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 17:00:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13979566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowglobegays/pseuds/toes-ier
Summary: A late night talk on the roof. It's bittersweet, in a way.





	something great (what we could have been)

**Author's Note:**

> dialogue heavy, not sent to my loml beta (didnt feel like it lol), pretty short. partly inspired by my relationship with my best friend. sorry if spacing is weird. enjoy :)
> 
> (end note has some stuff from me that i wrote at 5 am read @ ur own risk lol)

It was bittersweet, in a way. The stars twinkled brightly, watched by two boys, sitting on a roof, leaning against each other with hands tightly clasped and ankles interlocking. A moment of clarity, of moving on. One shorter boy clutching his best friend who used to be his world. One skinny boy pressing against his best friend who he didn’t know how to live without. Their worlds had drifted. They had lived apart for some time.

 “How are your classes?”  
  
“Don’t try to make small talk with me.”  
  
“You’re right. Sorry, Spaghetti.”  
  
A huff of laughter. “I’ve told you not to call me Spaghetti.” 

“I’m _not_ sorry for that.” 

A weight lifted. 

“How did we get here?” Eddie closed his eyes. “I barely even recognized your room.”  
  
“I _have_ redecorated.”  
  
Eddie smacked Richie. “Shut up. This is serious. We used to live out of each other’s pockets. I should be there when your interests change and you replace your posters.”

“You’re getting a little deep for me, man. I got new stuff like, yesterday. Don’t think too much into it.”

“I’ll try not to.”  
  
Richie snorted. “Somehow, I don’t think you will.”

“Oh sue me for being upset that my best friend and I barely know each other. Did you know that I don’t know your schedule? We could have classes right by each other and I don’t even know.”  
  
“I don’t know yours either, pal. Maybe I’ll send it to you. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” Richie winked.

“You’re still crude, at least. I know that much about you.”

“Hey.” Richie frowned, and turned to look at Eddie, whose head rested on his shoulder. The angle was almost painful. “You still know me, Eds. I’m not a different person.”  
  
Eddie refused eye contact. “I guess. But it’s been months since we’ve really talked, you know.”

“I know.”  
  
“Then how can you say we still know each other?”  
  
“Because a few months has nothing on all the years. You still work at the cafe by the library and you still take home a pastry and a latte every night. You try to have variety but you usually bring home a blueberry muffin. Is that still right?”  
  
Eddie blushed. “I've moved from lattes to smoothies. It’s gotten warmer.”  
  
“Okay so besides the drink, I got the rest right?”  
  
“That’s not much analysis, Rich.”  
  
“Alright. Alright, you still hate your manager because he keeps scheduling you for Wednesdays even though you have yoga on Wednesdays so you’ve skipped out on that for a few weeks because your coworkers are sick of you asking to cover for them. Your mom still makes you breakfast every morning but you never eat it because you never know what’s in it. You have first lunch and eat outside most days with Mike and Bill. You bring sandwiches from the cafe every day after you work.”  
  
Eddie tried to contain his smile, but Richie felt how his cheeks warmed as he grinned. “Have you been stalking me, Trashmouth? I thought you didn’t know my schedule.”  
  
“I don’t, but I do know Bill and Mike. We have a few classes together. They’ve mentioned everything.”

 “And you remembered it all?”  
  
The question hung heavy with implications. Of course Richie remembered. It was habit, after all.

 “I always remember what people say about you,” Richie whispered.  “I can’t even help it.”  
  
“I do the same whenever someone mentions you.”  
  
“People mention me?”  
  
“Duh. Teachers praise you all the time. My math teacher always talks about how well you scored on everything. Older kids still think you look stupid. Somehow, you’ve charmed a handful of girls in my third period and they talk about you the whole time. You broke your glasses last week?”  
  
“That was actually me being a dumbass. I fell down the stairs because I left my bag on the top step and forgot about it. Tripped and busted my ass.”  
  
“Well they thought you got in a fight. Said they saw you and Criss in the parking lot and figured he’d tried to knock you around.”  
  
“Nah, he was just buying from me.”

 “Buying?!” Eddie lifted his head. “What are you involved in?”  
  
“Ah, so you don’t know. It’s nothing bad, I promise. Just a secret.”  
  
“Richie.”  
  
“I sell copies of my old homework. Criss is failing Chemistry.”

Eddie exhaled harshly through his nose and laid his head back down. “You scared me. Thought you were some sort of…” he trailed off.

“Some sort of drug dealer? I’m not stupid, Eddie.”  
  
“I know you’re not. But I do know you’ve been smoking for years. Maybe you… moved up the chain.”

“Nah. It’s just homework. I make copies, sell a page for a dollar. Gets me more money than you'd think. Besides, I’ve been trying to quit smoking.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Really.”

“What made you decide to stop?”  
  
Richie stayed quiet for a long moment.

 “Rich?” Eddie prompted.

 “I thought…” Richie sighed. “I missed you. I thought that maybe if I stopped we could be close again, like sophomore year.”

 “Oh, Richie,” Eddie said sadly. “You smoking wasn’t why we stopped talking. You know why we’ve drifted.”  
  
“I know. I hoped, though, that me quitting would bring us together. One less thing for you to hate about me.”  
  
“You know damn well that hate has nothing to do with this. I hate smoking on everyone, but you managed to make it look cool. I’m glad you’re stopping, though.”  
  
“Thanks.”

 They sat in silence for what could have been hours. The sky began to brighten imperceptibly.

 “I think we could’ve been something great,” Eddie said.  
  
“We could have.”

 Eddie smiled bitterly. “Sometimes I think that you’re still the one. If I see someone cute my mind goes straight to you and how nobody will ever live up to how I felt about you.’

 “Ditto.” Richie kept his eyes focused on the fading stars. “Eds, I gotta be honest here, I was so fucking in love with you for so long. It physically hurt sometimes. I felt like… like some sort of garbage compared to you, I thought you’d never go for me. We have such different aspirations. That always scared me.”

 “It scared me too.”

 “I had our whole future planned out,” Richie admitted.  
  
“Yeah? What was it like?”  
  
Richie grinned. “Well,” he began, “we were gonna move to New York City. Have a cuteass apartment in the middle of the city. We’d go to college and start our careers, you know, I’d study history and work at a museum, or audition for every play I can, or camp outside TV studios hoping to catch a big break. You’d do whatever you wanted. You’ve changed your mind about what you wanna do enough.” Eddie nudged Richie playfully. “It’s true! We’d get our jobs and get… I’d find a ring just the color of my eyes and engrave something dumb on the inside and you’d say you hate it but you’d still say yes. Then we’d adopt all the kids, and I know, I know you don’t know if you actually want kids, but I know I do and we’d have to move to a big house in the suburbs to have room for all of them. We’d get old and fat and ugly but still go out every week and our house would be party central and I’d turn a blind eye to our kids experimenting with alcohol and pot but you’d be super strict and bust them out for it. We’d be happy.”  
  
“You weren’t kidding when you said everything,” Eddie murmured.  
  
“Yeah.”

 “I like it. One problem though.”  
  
Richie pouted. “What’s the problem?”  
  
Eddie smirked. “In what fucking world would you study history and work in a _museum_ ?”  
  
“It could happen!” Richie defended. “History is cool. I’d learn about old artifacts and lead tours and use voices and say that every bowl was a shitting pot.”

“That, I can picture.”  
  
“Did you think I meant some stuffy old curator who wouldn’t let kids take pictures?”  
  
“A bit. But I can see you as the fun tour guide. You’d be a hit.”  
  
“Thanks.”

“Of course.”

 They lapsed into silence again. The sky turned purple.  
  
“Did you ever think about our future?” Richie asked hesitantly.

 “I did. Of course I did, Rich.” Eddie closed his eyes. “Not in so much detail, but I knew you’d be someone successful, and I could be successful with you, and we could grow old together. Details scared me, but you never did. We had undeniable love. We knew, even if just in the back of our minds, I think we knew, like, we were each other’s person.”

 “Wow,” Richie breathed. “See, I thought that you didn’t want a life with me. You’d mention your plans and I was terrified because I could never fit in with that future. I knew we had… something... but I didn’t think you could ever want anything more than high school.”  
  
“I wanted it all with you.”  
  
“Nice to know.”  
  
Eddie sighed. “It’s a shame we realized too late. I wish we could have had this conversation years ago.”

 Richie looked down. “Maybe it’s for the best that we didn’t. We could have been something great, but maybe what we could have been wasn’t what we should have been.”  
  
“You’re getting too deep. We should sleep soon,” Eddie snickered. “You’re delusional, Trashmouth.”

 “It’s almost daytime,” Richie said in agreement, and he looked up at the sky. Eddie noticed the way the stars and street lights reflected in Richie’s eyes. It made him nostalgic for something he never had.

 Richie could see Eddie looking at him from the corner of his eyes. He opened his mouth without thinking. “I feel bad that I don’t love you anymore.”  
  
Eddie looked away. The sun broke the horizon. “I cried when I realized seeing you laugh didn’t make my heart skip a beat anymore.”

 “It was harder to come to terms with being over you than realizing I’d loved you in the first place.”  
  
“At least we weren’t together when we realized. That wouldn’t be fun.”

 “At least we’ve talked about it.”  
  
Eddie nodded. “That too.”  
  
“We can be friends again now.”  
  
“That too.”  
  
The sun rose, inch by inch, over the boys leaning against each other on the roof, a new dawn on a new friendship. It was bittersweet, in a way. Their whole lives would change. They’d go to school that Monday and nothing would seem different, but when Eddie caught a glimpse of Richie after lunch, he’d wave and run to his side. They’d chat, they’d laugh, and they’d part without feeling like the world had just stopped turning. Life went on. Their worlds collided, but not like before.

 

What they could have been wasn’t what they should have been but they would still be something great.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> ok not to sound bigheaded but ik i have a bit of a following w my gc fic and starting the whole wheelbrough ship and ik i've been mia for quite some time and i had this idea in my head and wanted it out so it's kind of my goodbye to the IT fandom and i'll update the gc fic someday and i'll read or look at or adore any wheelbrough content created but i have moved on with fandoms. 
> 
> richie and eddie say goodbye to their relationship as i say bye to the fandom. is that too much? i think so. sorry im out here sounding like a wholeass headass. if you havent read my other stuff i hope ur not reading this note bc i sound so conceited. anyway, i bid adieu.


End file.
